Quick personal note: I began with a general overview of what the Bible is, how and why it was written, etc. After that was at least planted (however incompletely), I have been increasingly compelled to study the nature and objects of the defining hope of a Christian. One such object of study is the end times—what exactly do we expect to happen? I’ll try to sketch-out an answer to that question below.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————

The World Is Too Much With Us

By William Wordsworth

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

( Source: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45564/the-world-is-too-much-with-us )

—————————————————————————————————————————————————

Question: What will heaven be like? Are there billions of souls taking turns with binoculars trying to catch a glimpse of Jesus in his throne room? Or is he a million feet tall and everyone’s just at his feet walking around craning their necks looking up at him for all eternity? Or does each individual get a vision of Jesus checking-in on them the way he might visit countless souls in their dreams here on earth? Is Jesus the only person we’ll ever want to look at? Is it just a total and eternal fixation on one image? Will we go about our days in the new creation with an added sense of his presence? Will it feel like someone watching us? Will his face be stamped on everything?

Answer: These sorts of questions appear to me to stem from sniffing-out a perceived monomania: It can seem odd to speak of our rescue, and of being flitted-off to heaven, when we consider heaven as essentially being a place where we endlessly, exclusively, thank our Rescuer for taking us there. It sounds claustrophobic or redundant.

It’s one thing to be a Christian because we’re grateful for the forgiveness of our sins, having a clear conscience, being freed of the guilt incurred even a millisecond ago—and it’s another thing entirely to know what to look forward to as a result of that forgiveness, after death. Our desire here and now, according to the flesh, is entirely alien to the desire we will have continually, infinitely, fulfilled yet always increasing for the Lord in heaven. The past, the present, and the future, are all promised in the eternal Word of the gospel which Christ speaks into the present.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————

“Now faith is the substance/assurance of things hoped for, the evidence/conviction of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1

“For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.” Hebrews 11:10

“These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.” Hebrews 11:13-16

—————————————————————————————————————————————————

Question: What about the delay of the parousia?

Answer: Let’s hear from Michael Bird on this (Source: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/euangelion/2019/07/paula-fredriksen-the-early-church-and-the-delay-of-the-parousia/) :

“That is not a new idea. Albert Schweizer once said:

The whole history of ‘Christianity’ down to the present day, that is to say, the real inner history of it, is based on the ‘delay of the parousia’, i.e. the failure of the parousia to materialize, the abandonment of eschatology, and the progress and completion of the ‘de-eschatologizing’ of religion (Quest, 328).

In the mid-twentieth century, the so-called delay of the parousia was regarded as a kind of controlling matrix for the early church influencing scholars from Rudolf Bultmann to C.K. Barrett in their mapping of Christian origins. It has been especially important for studies of Luke-Acts because, so it goes, you don’t write the history of the church if you are expecting the world to end tomorrow, and this supposedly explains why Luke focuses on delay in many of his parables, he emphasizes a realized eschatology, he periodizes history into the time of Law/prophets-Jesus-“times of the gentiles”-then the parousia, and treats Spirit and mission as a substitute for consummation. (see e.g. Hans Conzelmann who based his entire Lukan theology around this).

However, I’d argue the whole delay of the parousia as the and driving factor of the early church is over-played.

First, the problem of delay was an inherent feature in Israel’s religion and second temple Judaism. You only have to read how Jeremiah’s 70 years of exile was turned into 490 years of exile by Daniel to see how prophecy could be reinterpreted in light of new struggles and challenges arising. Similarly, the entire book of Habbakuk deals the problem of the apparent delay in God’s salvation, which is taken up in places like the 1QpHab where the Qumranites deal with their own expectations and a supposed interim phase ahead of an apocalyptic denouement. A cursory search of the words, “How long Oh Lord” shows just how replete the problem of delay is across the Hebrew Bible. Thus, Christian reinterpretation of biblical texts around a two-stage advent of the messiah and asking “how long oh Lord how long” was not an innovation, but simply a deployment of Jewish resources to a recurrent problem of delay, albeit, played in new coordinates of a messianic eschatology.

…

Yes, Jesus can speak of the imminence of the kingdom (e.g. Mark 1:15), but the imminence of the kingdom must be understood in conjunction with other sayings and stories in which Jesus describes precursors to the kingdom’s advent. The trial or testing (peirasmos) has not yet occurred (Luke 11:4/Matt 6:13), persecution implies a further period of activity (Mark 8:35-38/Matt 16:25-27/Luke 9:24-26; Matt 10:16-25; Luke 11:49-50), Jesus’ refusal to drink from the “fruit of the vine” until the kingdom comes in its fullness (Mark 14:25/Matt 26:29/Luke 22:18), and his apparent ignorance of the timing of the end (Mark 13:32/Matt 24:36), may also be indicative of an interval of some kind. Similarly, the parables of growth (Mark 4:1-32/Matt 13:1-32/Luke 13:18-19/Gos Thom 9, 20), and the reference to time being cut short (Mark 13:20/Matt 24:22) show the same thing. The paradox between Jesus’ proclamation of both the imminence and presence of the kingdom is resolved when it is realized that Jewish thinking could accommodate the arrival of the kingdom as extending over time, in and through a series of events that could invade the present (e.g. Jubilees 23; 1 Enoch 91:12-17). What is more, some of these purportedly imminent sayings can arguably be identified with events other than a “cosmic meltdown” including Jesus’ death (Mark 9:1), the destruction of Jerusalem (Matt 10:23; Mark 13:30), or the enthronement of Jesus into heaven (Mark 14:62). Consequently, the reference to the kingdom’s imminence does not necessarily entail the imminence of the entire eschatological scenario.

Third, I’d argue that Luke doesn’t mute eschatological enthusiasm as much as modulate it. The parable of the unjust judge is about perseverance which does not require an imminent parousia (Luke 18:7). The parable of ten talents, in which the nobleman goes to a distant country to become king, is based on the problem of the kingdom’s imminence not its failure to materialize (Luke 19:11-27). It is the character of the wicked nobleman as a cipher for God rather than the issue of timing that is so striking in the parable (see Luke 19:27!). Spirit and openness to Gentiles is no more a substitute for a failed parousia than it is for Isaiah 2, 42, 49, 61, Joel 2, Zechariah 8, and Micah 4 which also look ahead to the giving of the Spirit and eschatological pilgrimage of the Gentiles as part of a prophetic restoration eschatology. In addition, I’ve always been fascinated by how Luke can simultaneously be concerned about Jewish rejection of Jesus (e.g. Acts 13:46; 18:6; 28:25-28), yet at the same time Luke keeps looking forward to Israel’s redemption and restoration (Luke 2:32; 24:21; Acts 1:6; Acts 3:20). In my mind, that is the real tension that Luke is trying to resolve!

For a summary of recent scholarship on Luke’s eschatology see Michael Fuller, The Restoration of Israel, p. 201, n. 18.

Fourth, the sense of anticipation in Christ’s parousia has always been qualified.

On the one hand, Fredriksen is right: “Belief that the world is imminently to end has been, paradoxically, one of the longest-lived convictions of Christian culture” (132). But on the other hand, this has never been without qualification or condition.

For case in point, Paul gives the impression of imminence to the parousia at the beginning (1 Thess 1:10; 4:15-17; 5:2; Phil 4:5) and end of his apostolic ministry (Rom 13:11; 16:20). But on the other hand, Paul also is aware that he and others could be dead when it happens (1 Cor 6:14: Phil 1:20-25; 2 Cor 5:1-10; Rom 14:8). In 1 Thessalonians Paul deals with the problem of a lack of eschatological interest but in 2 Thessalonians he deals with too much eschatological focus on Christ’s return.

If you look at early Jewish Christian tradition of the Maranatha prayer (1 Cor 16:22) and the epilogue to John’s Apocalypse, imminent apocalyptic hopes for Christ’s return seem rather stable (Rev 22:7, 12, 20). But then again, one senses the idea that the consummation of the kingdom requires perseverance and a struggle in both early tradition (e.g. “It is through many persecutions that we must enter the kingdom of God” [Act 14:22]) and even in the Apocalypse the issue of delay and perseverance is rehearsed (Rev 2-3; 6:10).

Victoria Balabanski (1997) has pointed out that if the early church was disappointed by the failure of Christ to return, such a disappointment is not reflected in the key texts. The intensity of hope for Christ’s return fluctuated in some contexts and there was no definite tendency towards diminished eschatological enthusiasm since Matthew actually intensifies rather than plays down Mark’s eschatological material.

I find it ironic that 2 Peter (possibly as late as the late second century) can offer an apology for the parousia in the face of scoffers who deny it is ever gonna happen by making an appeal to divine patience and God’s relative relationship to time and simultaneously see Christ coming like a thief in the night (2 Pet 3:4-10) even while Hippolytus in Rome around the same time could write the first Left-Behind novel called Christ and Anti-Christ and excite hopes for Christ’s return with little qualification at all, no diminished sense of Christ’s failed parousia even the late second or early third century. My point is that it is not all, “He’s coming, he’s coming … Oh, maybe not, well, um, how about a Gentile mission then, oh, and have some Holy Spirit as compensation!” Christian thought in the first two centuries at least shows a consistent pattern of expectation and contingency in explaining Christ’s parousia in its relationship to the church.”

—————————————————————————————————————————————————

From John Theodore Mueller, Christian Dogmatics : “b. What eternal life is (forma beatitudinis aeternae). According to Holy Scripture the life eternal which Christ will graciously bestow upon His followers consists in the perpetual beatific vision of God, Job 19, 25-27; Acts 7, 55; Matt. 5, 8; 2 Cor. 5,1-6; 1 Cor. 13, 12; 1 John 3,2. In this life Christian believers see God only through faith by means of His Word, and, as it were, in an image, 1 Cor. 13,12 (cognitio Dei abstractiva); but in heaven they will behold Him without an image or veil, face to face (cognitio Dei intuitiva).

This beholding of God is beatific, that is, it is joined with supreme bliss, Ps. 17, 15, so that the blessed will never desire any other happiness than that of seeing God, the Supreme Good and Source of all perfect enjoyment. From this it follows that they can never fall away from Him, but they are confirmed in their heavenly glory (Rev. 14, 13; John 10, 27-29; Ps. 16, 11; John 17, 24; Rev. 7, 9-17). There will be no spiritual foe to interfere with their bliss (Rev. 20, 10).

Quenstedt describes the everlasting happiness of the blessed as follows: ‘The form [of eternal life] consists, generally speaking, in the ineffable, most full, and never-ending reception of incomprehensible blessings. The blessings of eternal life are either privative or positive. The privative blessings are the absence of sin and of all causes of sin, namely, the flesh inciting, the devil suggesting, the world seducing, and of the punishments of sin, such as various calamities, Is. 25, 8; 49, 10; Rev. 21, 4; temporal death, Hos. 13, 14; 1 Cor. 15, 26. 55-57; Rev. 2-7, and eternal damnation, Rev. 2,11; 20, 14. Here also belongs immunity from the affections and actions of the animal body as such, as, for example, hunger, thirst, eating, drinking, the use of marriage, etc., Rev. 7, 16.17; Matt 22,30. Some of the positive blessings of life eternal are internal, while others are external. The internal positive blessings, among which the beatific and immediate sight of God is preeminent, belong to the entire composite being and affect both body and soul of the blessed. The internal blessings of either part of the composite the beatific and immediate sight of God is preeminent, belong to the entire composite being and affect both body and soul of the blessed. The internal blessings of either part of the composite being belong either to the soul or to the body. Those of the soul are: a) the perfect enlightenment of the intellect, 1 Cor. 13, 9-12; b) complete rectitude of the will as well as the appetite, Ps. 17, 15; Eph. 5,27; c) the highest security concerning the perpetual duration of this blessedness, John 16, 22. Those of the body are: a) spirituality, 1 Cor. 15, 44.47; Phil. 3, 21; b) invisibility, 1 Cor. 15, 44; c) impalpability, 1 Cor. 15, 44.48; d) illocality (ibid.); d) subtility (ibid.); f) agility, 1 Thess. 4, 17; g) impassibility, Rev. 7, 16; 21, 4; h) immortality and incorruptibility,1 Cor. 15, 42-48). 53; 2 Cor. 5,4; i) strength and soundness, 1 Cor. 15, 43; j) brilliancy, Dan. 12, 3; Matt. 13, 43; 1 Cor. 15, 41.43; k) beauty, 1 Cor 15, 43; Phil. 3, 21.

The external positive blessings are those which the blessed experience deeply outside of themselves. Of these two are chief: a) the most delightful communion with God, Luke 23, 43; John 12, 26; 14, 3; 17, 24; 2 Cor. 5, 8; Phil. 1, 23; 1 Thess. 4, 17; Rev. 21, 3, with the angels, Heb. 12, 22, and with all the blessed, Matt. 8, 11; Luke 13, 29; Heb. 12, 23, consisting in the mutual presence, the most agreeable conversations, and the rendering of mutual honor, joined with mutual love; and b) a most beautiful and magnificent abode.’ (Doctr. Theol., p. 661 f.)

With respect to the beatific vision, Scripture teaches that this is accomplished not merely by means of mental contemplation (visio mentalis), but by the actual sight of the eyes (visio corporalis), 1 Cor. 9, 12; Job 19, 25-27; 1 John 3, 2. Those who doubt the possibility of the beatific vision may just as well doubt the possibility of all of heaven, since the entire doctrine of eternal life transcends our feeble understanding. That the blessed in heaven will recognize not only God, but one another is plainly taught in Scripture, Matt. 17, 3. 4; Rev. 7, 13. 14. Hafenreffer writes: ‘Because the perfect image of God in which we had been created will be fully restored, we shall be endowed also with perfect wisdom and knowledge. Hence, if Adam before the Fall immediately recognized his rib in Eve, much more in the life to come, when all these gifts will be far more perfect, shall we recognize one another, Luke 16, 23; Matt. 17, 1 ff.’ (Doctr. Theol., p. 662.)

Whether the blessed will recognize the damned in hell is not certain … Dr. Pieper wisely suggests that it is best to leave this question unanswered. …

c. How Scripture describes life eternal. God rightly suggests that what eternal life is can be known from the revelation of the Word only in a general and obscure manner. As a matter of fact, while Holy Scripture speaks of eternal life in many places, it does not supply us with many details regarding its exalted nature. This method of teaching the Holy Spirit has chosen designedly; for in this life we have no adequate conception of the nature of things that lie beyond space and time.

Nevertheless the description of eternal life which God’s Word provides is sufficient to give us a foretaste of the coming glory, Rom. 8, 18, and to make us long for heaven, Phil. 1, 23. Negatively Scripture describes the blessedness of God’s saints in heaven as complete freedom from all the ills of this life, 2 Tim. 4, 18; Rev. 7, 16. 17; 21, 4; positively, as supreme and perfect bliss, 1 Pet. 1, 8. 9; Ps. 16, 11; John 17, 24. Moreover, Scripture depicts the perfect joy of eternal life by means of symbols that give us a foretaste of heaven’s perfect glory (Matt. 25, 10; Rev. 19, 9): marriage; Luke 13, 29; Matt. 8, 11: a feast of joy; Luke 22, 30: sitting upon thrones). That these pictures must not be explained in a physical or earthly sense Scripture expressly shows, Luke 22, 24-30; Matt. 22, 30.

However, not only the soul, but also the body will share in the eternal bliss of heaven, 1 Cor. 15, 44; for it shall be like the glorified body of Christ, Phil. 3, 21, and shall shine as the sun, Matt. 13, 43, being free from all consequences of sin, 1 Cor. 15, 42. 43.

The language which will be used in heaven is not earthly, but heavenly, so that it cannot be known upon earth (2 Cor. 12, 4: ‘unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for man to utter’).

Which there are no degrees of bliss, since all the saints of Christ shall see God and so will be completely blessed, Scripture teaches that there are degrees of glory, commensurate with the faithfulness and sufferings of Christians believers in this life, 2. Cor. 9, 6; 1 Cor. 15, 41. 42; Dan. 12, 3. (Omnibus una salus sanctis, sed gloria dispar; cp. Luther, St. L.,. VIII, 1223 f.). These differences in glory will of course not arouse envy, since jealousy is sin, Gal. 5, 20. 21, and sin will be completely abolished in heaven, Ps. 17, 15; 16, 11.

Heaven indeed must be conceived of as a certain place where the blessed will see God and perfectly enjoy supreme glory, Matt. 5, 12; 6, 20; 1 Pet. 1, 4; Mark 16, 19; yet we must not understand this ‘certain’ in a physical sense. As the damnatorum is everywhere where God reveals His eternal punitive justice, so the beatorum is everywhere where God reveals His eternal grace and love in unveiled glory. Thus the angels are always in heaven, even when they minister to the saints on earth, Matt. 18, 10; Luke 1, 19.

d. The saints in heaven. Scripture describes as the saints of God who shall inherit eternal life all those who believe in Christ, John 3, 16-18. 36. For this reason it is wrong to ascribe eternal life also to non-believers on the basis of their iustitia naturalis et civilis. Christ expressly commanded His disciples to preach the Gospel to every creature, adding the warning that whosoever believeth not shall be damned, Mark 16, 15. 16; Luke 24, 47; cp. also Acts 26, 18.

That only true believers shall be eternally saved appears also from all passages in Scripture, a) in which Christian ministers are commanded to be faithful and diligent in their sacred office in order that not a soul may be lost through unbelief, Ezek. 3, 18. 19; 2 Tim. 4, 1. 2; 2, 23-26; 1 Tim. 4, 15.16; b) in which all Christians are exhorted to instruct, reprove, and warn their erring brethren lest they lose their soul’s salvation through apostasy, Matt. 18, 15-17; 1 Cor. 5; and c) in which all Christians are admonished to lead a holy life lest they become guilty of any one’s damnation through the offense of denying the Christian faith and profession, Matt. 18, 6. 7.

e. The purpose of the doctrine of eternal salvation. As the doctrine of eternal damnation serves to warn men against unbelief and carnal security, so the doctrine of eternal life serves to incite the believers to greater faith and to sustain them in their faithful following of Christ, Matt. 10, 22; 24, 13; Mark 13, 13. A truly Christian life is impossible without constant consideration of the sure hope of eternal life, Phil. 3, 12-14; 1, 23. 24; Matt. 6, 19-21. (Cp. Luther, St. L., IX, 930 ff.)

In this life Christian believers do not receive that recognition which they deserve as children of God, 1 John 3, 2, just as little as their Savior was appreciated during His sojourn on earth, Is. 53, 1-3; John 1, 10.11. Moreover, as they are hated and troubled by ‘all men,’ Matt. 10, 22. 25; 24, 9, they must endure much tribulation in general before they can enter into God’s Kingdom of Glory, Acts 14, 22. Hence they should constantly direct their attention to their sure inheritance in heaven in order that they may overcome all evil and gain the eternal victory, Matt. 5, 12; 2 Cor. 4, 16-18. All manner of tribulation is the earthly lot especially of the Christian ministers, 2 Tim. 2, 9; 2 Cor. 4, 16-18. All manner of tribulation is the earthly lot especially of the Christian ministers, 2 Tim. 2,9; 2 Cor. 4, 7-11, since the world detests the Gospel of Christ, 1 Cor. 1, 23, and will abominate it till the end of time, 2 Tim. 4, 10. …

Of the practical use of the doctrine of eternal life, Gerhard writes very beautifully: ‘The doctrine concerning the heaven of the blessed and eternal life is set forth in Holy Scripture not that we may idly dispute as theorists concerning the locality of heaven, the beatific vision, the properties of the glorified bodies, but that, as practical men, considering the promised joys of eternal life every day, aye, every hour, aye, every moment, we may keep closely to the way leading thither and carefully avoid all that may cause delay or recall us from entrance into life eternal.

In 2 Cor. 4, 18 the godly are well described by the apostle as looking not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. One of the ancients who was asked what books he used in his daily studies answered that he studied every day a book with three pages, one red, one black, one white; that on the red page he read of our Lord’s Passion, on the black, of the torments of the lost, and on the white, of the joys of the glorified, and that from this study he derived more profit than if he would ponder all the works of the philosophers.’ (Doctr. Theol., p. 663.)”

——————————————————————————————————————————————————

From Bavinck, The Wonderful Works of God : “The fact is that the proponents of the theories of immortality and of evolution want to hear nothing of the scriptural doctrine concerning death and the grave, concerning judgment and punishment. Death is in their judgment not a penalty for sin, but only a transitional means to a higher and better life. There is no judgment in death except in this sense that everybody must bear the consequences of his willing and doing. There remains no place for a hell inasmuch as everybody is caught up in the process of evolution and that everybody must therefore, sooner or later, after a longer or shorter period of error and straying, come out at the right point. Asked then whether such a thing as eternal life is possible, a life of undisturbed blessedness and glory, these proponents are suddenly condemned to silence. They have so long been conducting the argument against the Christian doctrines of death and the grave, of judgment and punishment, and have so long delighted in the disappearance of these doctrines, that they forgot to ask the question whether, with the extinction of these, the hope of an eternal life, and of an everlasting blessedness did not also fall away. The moment that question is propounded, it becomes clear that in the heat of the battle the hope of an eternal life somehow got lost. With the same knife that was used to cut away all fear out of the heart of man all hope was also cut away.

So much is certain that if evolution is the one, all-commanding law of the world and of mankind, of the here and now and of the future, then the hope of an eternal life is robbed of every certain basis. The thought that in the end everything will come out satisfactorily is itself already a guess, and it is one which finds no support in Scripture and the conscience, in nature and history. But assume for a moment that this guess were correct: then this were a condition which never remain so. For the same law of development which had been operative before and which brought about this new condition would continue to operate and cause the human being to enter a different condition. In the theory of evolution there is nowhere a resting point, nowhere an end or a purpose; the blessedness which according to the expectation of many it is going to bring, is always in process of changing. No such thing is possible, then, as an eternal blessed life. Hence it is that some, convinced of the impossibility of a resting place, have again called in the ancient, pagan doctrine of the eternal return of all things, and now present this notion as the solution to the world problem. If the now existing world has reached the apex of its development, it must again collapse and begin everything anew. After the flood of the tide comes the ebb, and the ebb will again cause a flood; after the development comes the retrogression, which newly brings about a development. And so on endlessly. There is only such a thing as time; there is no eternity. There is only movement; there is no rest. There is only a becoming; there is no being. There is only the creature; there is no creator who is and who was and who shall be.

All this confirms the word of Scripture that those who are without Christ, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, have no hope and are without God in the world (Eph. 2:12). They can guess, it is true, and wish, and indeed they never cease doing so; but they have no solid basis for their hopes. They lack the certainty of Christian hope.

The moment, however, we turn to Israel we are led into a very different mentality. The Old Testament never speaks of the so-called immortality of the soul, and does not come with a single piece of evidence of it; but it nurtures ideas of life and death which can be found nowhere else and which put the future in a very different light.

In Scripture death is never the equivalent of annihilation or of not-being; to die and to be dead is there used as a contrast to the whole life, the rich life, and the full life which was man’s portion originally in the fellowship with God here on earth. Hence, when man dies it is not only his body but his soul also that is affected. The whole man dies and in both body and soul he then exists in the state of death; he no longer belongs to the earth but is an inhabitant of the realm of the dead (Sheol), a place which is thought of as being in the depths of the earth, even beneath the waters and the foundations of the hills. True, the deceased still have an existence there, but this existence is no more worthy of the name of life, and is like a non-existence. They are weak and powerless (Ps. 88:5 and Isa. 14:10), live in silence, and in a land of darkness (Job 10:20-21) and decay (Job 26:6 and 28:22). All that bears the name of life ceases there; God and men are no longer seen there (Isa. 38:11): the Lord is no more praised there, nor thanked (Ps. 6:5 and 115:17); His excellences are no longer proclaimed there and His wonders are no more seen (Ps. 88:11-13). The dead have no knowledge, they have no wisdom and no science, they do no work and have no share in all that takes place under the sun. It is a land of oblivion (Ps. 88:13). It was thus that death was sensed by the saints in Israel: as a total banishment from the realm of life and light. And over against this, life was thought of as a fulness of well-being and salvation. Life was not thought of in an abstract, philosophical manner as a kind of naked existence. By its very nature life comprised a fulness of blessings: the fellowship of God first of all, but then too, the fellowship of His people, and the fellowship of the land that the Lord had given to His people. Life in the full, rich existence of man in the unity of his soul and body, in the unity with God and in harmony with his surroundings—all this it includes, and also blessedness and glory, virtue and happiness, peace and joy. If man had remained obedient to God’s command, he would have tasted of this rich life and would not have seen death (Gen 2:17). Then there would have been no division between his body and soul, and the bond would not have broken which related him to God, to the human race, and to the earth. Man, then, would have lived on eternally, in the rich fellowship in which at the beginning he was placed. As man he would in the oneness and fulness of his being have been immortal.

And if because of sin death has made its entrance into the world, God nevertheless in grace renews the fellowship with man, and sets up His covenant with Israel. In this covenant that full communion is re-established in principle. That covenant, as it existed in the Old Testament, comprised the fellowship with God but consequently also the fellowship with his people and with his country. The fellowship with God is the first and most important benefit of the covenant; without it there really can be no talk about life. God bound Himself to Abraham and his seed in covenant, saying: I will be a God unto thee and the God of thy seed (Gen. 17:7). He led Israel out of Egypt and at Sinai He entered into covenant obligation with it.

Hence for the people of Israel and for every member of that people there is no joy except in the fellowship with the Lord. The ungodly did not understand this, broke the covenant, and looked for life and peace in their own ways. They left the fountain-head of the living waters and hewed themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, which held no water (Jer. 2:13). But the saints knew that such was life and they gave expression to it in their prayer and their song. The Lord was the portion of their inheritance, their rock and fortress, their shield and high tower (Ps. 16:5 and 18:2). His lovingkindness was better to them than life (Ps. 63:3). He was their highest good, besides whom there was none in heaven or upon earth to desire (Ps. 73:25). Even though they might be forsaken of everyone and pursued by their enemies and subdued by them, in Him they leaped up and rejoiced, and they had joy in the God of their salvation (Habak. 3:18). In this fellowship with God they were able to transcend all the misery of this earthly life, and also the fear of the grave, the dread of death and the darkness of Sheol.

…

But even though it be true that the believers of the Old Testament realized to a lesser or greater extent that the fellowship of the Lord could not be destroyed, nor even temporarily broken off, by death, by the descent into the grave, and by remaining in the state of death, they nevertheless for the most part lived in a different climate of thought. They felt so very different about these things than we do. When we think of the future we almost exclusively think of our own death and the assumption of our soul in heaven. But the Israelites had an idea of life which was much richer than ours. For them the awareness of the fellowship with God was connected with the fellowship with His people and His land. The true, full life was the victory over all separation; it was the restoration and confirmation of that rich fellowship in which man was originally created. The covenant had been established by God not with one person but with His people and also with the land that He had given His people as an inheritance. Hence death was fully overcome and life altogether brought to light only when, as in the future, the Lord would Himself come to dwell among His people, purge it of all unrighteousness, grant it the victory over all its enemies, and cause it to live safely in a land of prosperity and peace.

…

what the prophecy of the Old Testament comprehended in one large figure, broke up into various parts later on. One thing and another came into being alongside of it. It was actualized not in a moment or a day but through a long period of time and piece by piece.

More specifically, we are taught by the New Testament that the one coming of the Messiah which was anticipated by the prophets must be separated into a first and a second coming. In accordance with prophecy, the Messiah had to come for the purpose of redemption and judgment, for the redemption of His people and the judgment of His enemies. But when this prophecy comes to fulfillment it becomes evident that each of these purposes requires a particular coming of the Christ. After all, Jesus repeatedly during His stay on earth gave expression to the fact that He was now come to seek and to save that which was lost (Luke 19:10), in order to serve and to give His soul a ransom for many (Matt. 20:28), not to condemn the world but to save it.23 But at the same time He states plainly and powerfully that He through the light which He sheds abroad brings a judgment and a division into the world ( John 3:19 and 9:39), and that He will sometime return to judge the living and the dead ( John 5:22 and 27–29). It is true that He must be crucified and put to death, but thereupon He will be raised again and ascend back to heaven (Matt. 16:21 and John 6:62) in order at the end to come again, to gather all peoples before Him and to reward each according to his doing.24

There is, accordingly, a big difference between these two comings of the Lord. At the first Christ appeared in the weakness of the flesh, in the form of a servant, to suffer and to die for the sins of His people (Phil. 2:6–8), and at the second He will manifest Himself to all in great power and glory as a King who goes out conquering and to conquer.25 Nevertheless, both of these comings of the Lord are closely interrelated. The first paves the way for the second because according to the idea of Holy Scripture and the basic law of the kingdom of heaven it is only the passion that can lead to the glory, the cross that can lead to the crown, and the humiliation that can lead to the exaltation (Luke 24:26).

At His first coming Christ laid the foundation, and at His second He brings the completion of the building of God; the first is the beginning and the second is the end of His work as Mediator. Because Christ is a perfect Savior, who brings not only the possibility but also the actuality of salvation, He cannot and may not and will not rest before those who are His own have been bought by His blood, been renewed by His Spirit, and brought where He is, there to be the spectators and sharers of His glory ( John 14:3 and 17:24). He must give those whom the Father has given Him the eternal life ( John 6:39; and 10:28), He must present His church without spot or blemish or anything of the kind to the Father (Eph. 5:27), and transfer the Kingdom to Him after it has been wholly completed and fulfilled (1 Cor. 15:23–28). Because the first and second coming of Christ are so intimately related to each other, and because the one would not for a moment be thinkable without the other, Holy Scriptures place very little emphasis on the length or shortness of the time that must elapse between the two. In Scripture the temporal connection is far behind the material connection in importance. The time which intervenes between the two is often presented as being very short. The believers of the New Testament are living towards the end of the ages (1 Cor. 10:11), in the last times (1 Peter 1:20), in the last time (1 John 2:18). They have only a little while left to suffer (1 Peter 1:6 and 5:10), for the day is approaching (Heb. 10:25 and 37), the future is drawing nigh ( James 5:8), the time is at hand (Rev. 1:3 and 22:10), the judge is standing at the door ( James 5:9), and Christ is coming quickly (Rev. 3:11 and 22:7 and 20). Paul regarded it as not improbable that he and his contemporaries would live to see the return of Christ (1 Thess. 4:15 and 1 Cor. 15:51). In saying these things, Scripture does not give us any specific instruction concerning that interim, for it tells us plainly elsewhere that the day and the hour is hid from men and angels and that it has been fixed by the Father in His own power (Matt. 24:36 and Acts 1:7). Every effort to calculate the moment of that future is unwarranted and unfruitful (Acts 1:7), for the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night at an hour which men do not know.26 As a matter of fact, that day cannot come until the gospel has been preached to all peoples (Matt. 24:14), until the kingdom of heaven has leavened all things (Matt. 13:33), and until the man of sin has appeared (2 Thess. 2:2ff.). The Lord has a different norm for measuring time than we; one day is to Him as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day. His apparent postponement is long-suffering which would not that any should be lost, but rather that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:8–9). But what the Holy Scriptures want to teach us by these various utterances concerning the intervening period between Christ’s comings is that the two stand in the closest of relationships with each other. The work which the Father has given Christ to do is one work; and that work extends into all the ages and comprises the whole history of mankind. It was begun in eternity; it was continued in time; and it will again end in eternity. The brief period in which Christ lived in the body on earth is but a tiny portion of the ages over which He has been appointed Lord and King. That which He achieved during that period by His passion and death He applies in the church through His Word and Spirit from the time of His ascension on, and He completes it at His second coming. Indeed, He ascended into heaven in order to be the nearer to His own, to be constantly more intimately related with them, and always to come nearer them.

The time which elapses between His first and His second coming is in fact a continuous coming of Christ to the world. Just as in the days of the Old Testament He had His coming in the flesh heralded by all kinds of manifestations and activities, so He is now busy preparing His return in order to judge and divide—a judgment and a division which He brings into being by His Word and Spirit in the world of men. It is a continuous coming of Christ, that of which the believers of the New Testament are witnesses. They see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the power of God and coming upon the clouds of heaven (Matt. 26:64). They see His coming in the preaching of His Word and in the operation of His Spirit ( John 14:18–20 and 16:16, 19ff.). It is not true to say that Christ came once to the earth, but rather that He comes continuously, that He is the coming one and the one who will come (Heb. 10:37 and Rev. 1:4 and 8). For these reasons the believers of the New Testament look forward with great longing to Christ’s return. Just as the saints of the Old Testament, so those of the New thought and spoke comparatively seldom about their personal end in death. All their expectations were directed on the return of Christ and the fulfillment of the kingdom of God. They were very conscious of the fact that they were living in the day of the fulfillment, in that day which the prophecy of the Old Testament had represented as the great illustrious day of the Lord, and which extends from the ascension to the return of Christ. The nearness of this return, as they thought of it, is but another expression of the absolute certainty with which they awaited it. Their strong faith is the root of their unwavering hope. In His sojourn with His disciples Jesus spoke a great deal about faith and love and little about hope, for what mattered most then was that their attention be fixed on His person and work. But He gave out many promises concerning His resurrection and ascension, His sending of the Spirit, and His return in glory.

…

He who believes is immediately delivered from the wrath of God and is the inheritor of eternal life. In that very moment he is ready for heaven. If he must remain on earth that is not because he must still perfect himself and through good works earn eternal life; it is, rather, for the sake of the brethren, in order that they walk in good works which God has prepared (Phil. 1:24 and Eph. 2:10). Even the suffering which such a person must often still bear upon earth is not a punishment and is not a penalty, but is a fatherly chastisement which serves for his nurture (Heb. 12:5–11); it is a filling up of that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in his flesh for His body’s sake, which is the church, to build and to establish it in the truth (Col. 1:24). On the basis of the perfect work of Christ, therefore, heaven stands open for the believers immediately upon their death.

…

According to Revelation 6:8 and 7:9 and elsewhere, the souls of the martyrs and of all the saved in heaven are present before the throne of God and before the Lamb, clothed with long white clothes and having palm branches in their hands. For blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from this time on; they rest from their labors which they have done on the earth, and their works do follow them (Rev. 14:13 and Heb. 4:9); and they live and reign with Christ all the while up to His return (Rev. 20:4 and 6).

Although the believers upon their death immediately become sharers of the heavenly blessedness according to their soul, still their condition is in a certain sense still a preliminary one and a still imperfect one. After all, their bodies are still in the grave and are there subject to decay; soul and body are still separated and do not share in the eternal blessedness in union with each other. Taken as a whole therefore, the believers in this interim period find themselves still in the state of death, just as Jesus after His death and before His resurrection continued in that state, even though His soul had been taken up into paradise. Accordingly, the believers in that state are called those who are asleep in Christ or have died in Him;27 their dying is called a sleeping ( John 11:11 and 1 Cor. 11:30) and a seeing of corruption (Acts 13:36).

All this goes to prove that the intermediate state is not yet the final state. Since Christ is the perfect Savior, He is not content with the redemption of the soul, but effects also the redemption of the body. The kingdom of God. therefore, will be completed only when He has put down all rule and authority and power, has put all enemies under His feet, and has conquered the last enemy, death (1 Cor. 15:24–26). Both in heaven and on earth, accordingly, there is a yearning for that future in which the last blow will have been struck and the perfect victory have been achieved. The souls of the martyrs in heaven call out with a loud voice, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth (Rev. 6:10)? And the Spirit and the bride on earth say, Come, Lord Jesus, yea, come quickly (Rev. 22:17)!

…

In proportion as a person has been faithful in using the talents given him he will in the kingdom of God receive greater honor and lordship (Matt. 25:14ff.). Even the cup of cold water which in the name of a disciple is given to one of His little ones, will not be forgotten in the day of judgment; He crowns and rewards the good works which in and through Himself He brought into being through His own. Thus all, it is true, share in the same blessings, the same eternal life, and the same fellowship with God. But there is nevertheless a difference among them in brilliance and glory. In proportion to their faithfulness and zeal, the churches receive from their Lord and King a different crown and reward (Rev. 2–3). There are many, many mansions in the one house of the Father ( John 14:2). By this difference of rank and place and task the communion of the saints is enriched. Just as the harmony of a hymn is enhanced by the quality of the voices, and the beauty of light is multiplied in the richness of its colors and tints, so Christ will one time be glorified in the multitude of His saints, and He will become wonderful in the thousands times a thousand who believe in His name. For all the inhabitants of the New Jerusalem will behold God’s face, and will bear His name upon their foreheads. And all together they will raise the song of Moses before the throne, and the song of the Lamb, and each in his own way will proclaim the great works of God: Great and marvelous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are Thy ways Thou king of saints. Who would not fear Thee, and glorify Thy name (Rev. 15:3–4)? For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to Him be the glory forever! Amen.” (Bavinck, Herman. The Wonderful Works of God. Westminster Seminary Press. Édition du Kindle)

——————————————————————————————————————————————————

From Martin Luther’s commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians:

“VERSE 6. For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.

Paul concludes the whole matter with the above statement. "You want to be justified by the Law, by circumcision, and by works. We cannot see it. To be justified by such means would make Christ of no value to us. We would be obliged to perform the whole law. We rather through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness." The Apostle is not satisfied to say "justified by faith." He adds hope to faith.

Holy Writ speaks of hope in two ways: as the object of the emotion, and hope as the emotion itself. In the first chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians we have an instance of its first use: "For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven," i.e., the thing hoped for. In the sense of emotion we quote the passage from the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans: "For we are saved by hope." As Paul uses the term "hope" here in writing to the Galatians, we may take it in either of its two meanings. We may understand Paul to say, "We wait in spirit, through faith, for the righteousness that we hope for, which in due time will be revealed to us." Or we may understand Paul to say: "We wait in Spirit, by faith for righteousness with great hope and desire." True, we are righteous, but our righteousness is not yet revealed; as long as we live here sin stays with us, not to forget the law in our members striving against the law of our mind. When sin rages in our body and we through the Spirit wrestle against it, then we have cause for hope. We are not yet perfectly righteous. Perfect righteousness is still to be attained. Hence we hope for it.

This is sweet comfort for us. And we are to make use of it in comforting the afflicted. We are to say to them: "Brother, you would like to feel God's favor as you feel your sin. But you are asking too much. Your righteousness rests on something much better than feelings. Wait and hope until it will be revealed to you in the Lord's own time. Don't go by your feelings, but go by the doctrine of faith, which pledges Christ to you."

The question occurs to us, What difference is there between faith and hope? We find it difficult to see any difference. Faith and hope are so closely linked that they cannot be separated. Still there is a difference between them.

First, hope and faith differ in regard to their sources. Faith originates in the understanding, while hope rises in the will. Secondly, they differ in regard to their functions. Faith says what is to be done. Faith teaches, describes, directs. Hope exhorts the mind to be strong and courageous. Thirdly, they differ in regard to their objectives. Faith concentrates on the truth. Hope looks to the goodness of God. Fourthly, they differ in sequence. Faith is the beginning of life before tribulation. (Hebrews 11.) Hope comes later and is born of tribulation (Romans 5.) Fifthly, they differ in regard to their effects. Faith is a judge. It judges errors. Hope is a soldier. It fights against tribulations, the Cross, despondency, despair, and waits for better things to come in the midst of evil. Without hope faith cannot endure. On the other hand, hope without faith is blind rashness and arrogance because it lacks knowledge. Before anything else a Christian must have the insight of faith, so that the intellect may know its directions in the day of trouble and the heart may hope for better things. By faith we begin, by hope we continue.”

—————————————————————————————————————————————————

From Richard B. Gaffin’s By Faith, Not by Sight:

“Paul makes a categorical distinction. He sees the person of the Christian existing as both ‘inner man’ and ‘outer man,’ a distinction present by implication in references to ‘the inner man’ in Romans 7:22 and Ephesians 3:16. Despite the present trend in English usage to avoid the gender-neutral, generic masculin singular, for the sake of clarity in the discussion that follows, I will retain the traditional rendering (or ‘self’) for the Greek word used here (anthropos) and reserve the alternative ‘person’ to refer to the single subject of verse 16 who exists as both ‘outer’ and ‘inner man.’ This distinction is not partitive, in terms of two distinct personal entities or natures. Paul is not saying tha tthe Christian is a dual personality, a sort of schizophrenic or hybrid consisting of two persons, though, as we will presently note, there are partitive implications. The distinction, rather, is best taken as aspectival. It describes two ways of viewing the person of the Christian as a whole. In this regard, it is extremely important to keep in mind throughout the course of our discussion that it is the one ‘I,’ existing as both inner man and outer man, who is the single, total subject that does not ‘grow tired,’ become ‘discouraged’, or ‘give up’. That is not said of the inner as distinct from the outer. Elsewhere in Paul, on the one hand, ‘the outer man’ is virtually equivalent to, or interchangeable with, ‘body’ and ‘members,’ while ‘the inner man’ is in view frequently in his use of ‘heart’ or sometimes ‘spirit,’ understood as the human spirit. As more careful examination beyond what I undertake here would show, the outer man or body is more than the narrowly physical or biotic. It is, as we might put it, the psycho-physical ‘package’ that I am. It is I as a functioning person—as thinking, willing, speaking, and acting. All told, we may say, the outer self is the functioning I. In distinction, ‘the inner self’ or ‘heart’ has in view who I am at the core of my being, in my prefunctional disposition. It is that disposition, more basic than my functioning, giving rise to my functioning and decisively controlling and finding expression in that functioning. As Paul views human beings in general and believers particularly, we are more than what we think or say or do. It is fair to say that in verse 16, Paul expresses a certain definite, in fact quite fundamental, ‘split’ in the person of the Christian. But he is not bifurcating or dichotomizing the Christian’s personal makeup between an essential inner core and a disposable outer shell or covering. … Within the immediately preceding context, what correlates most closely with verse 16, without being precisely identical, is verse 7, ‘We have this treasure in clay jars.’ This statement, which is, strictly speaking, autobiographical, surely includes a representative dimension that points to what is true for all believers. ‘This treasure’ may be construed variously from the immediately preceding verses (vv. 4—6). It is either the gospel or its content: the eschatological glory of God in Christ or the person of Christ himself, the exalted Christ indwelling the believer. ‘Clay jars,’ in distinction, has in view the outer man of believers, believers in their bodily existence. Second, to clear away a persisting misunderstanding, the distinction in 2 Corinthians 4:16 is not the same as the old man-new man distinction found elsewhere in Paul. He is clear that ‘our old man was crucified with Christ’ (Rom. 6:6). In ‘putting on Christ’ (Gal. 3:28), that is, in being united with Christ by faith, the Christian has ‘put off the old man and put on the new man’ (Col. 3:9—10). The single subject in 2 Corinthians 4:16, the person as a whole who ‘does not despair,’ is the new person in Christ, the Christian existing, as noted, in the modes of both the inner and the outer man. Third, ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ refer to opposite, in fact antithetical, principles operative in their outcomes as death and life. ‘The outer self’ is the subject, the I that I am, undergoing decay resulting in death. ‘The inner self’ is the subject, the I that I am, marked by life—in fact, as we will see, eschatological life—and ongoing (‘day by day’) renewal. With these clarifying comments on the sense of the passage, we may go on to relate the inner-outer distinction to what we have seen to be the heart of Paul’s ordo salutis: union with the exalted Christ by faith. This union, given its obvious centrality, provides an important perspective on that distinction.

…

An important facet of verse 16, though often overlooked, is that its basic anthropological differentiation is drawn in a way that keeps the proverbial “already and not yet” from being distorted into an undifferentiated, yes-and-no dialectic, a matter we will address further below. Here we may note that it points to a clear yes for the inner self and a clear no for the outer self. The benefits of union with Christ are such, it appears, that insofar as I am outer self, that is, in terms of my bodily existence, those benefits are not yet possessed. My sharing in them is still future. On the other hand, as I am inner self or heart, considered for who I am at the core of my being, in my most basic bent or disposition, those benefits are already received and possessed; they are a present reality. This fundamental state of affairs is given some clarification in the immediately following section (5:1–10). There Paul addresses the believer’s hope of bodily resurrection, in other words, hope for the outer man. In this context, verse 7 affirms, “For we walk by faith, not by sight.” This statement, proverbial in its ring, is an assertion like 4:16. It opens a fundamental perspective on the Christian life. Particularly instructive here is the way it serves to interpret 4:16 (as well as 4:7). “By faith” correlates with “the inner self” (“this treasure”) and what is presently true for believers; “by sight” correlates with “the outer self” (“clay jars”) and what is still future. For the present, until Jesus comes, our union with him and our sharing in the benefits of that union are “by faith,” but not (yet) “by sight.” We have our salvation for the present, all told, in the mode of believing, but as that believing falls short of seeing. Such “sight” participation in the benefits of union with Christ is reserved for what will be openly manifest in the resurrection of the body at his return (the predominating concern of the immediate context).

…

What bears highlighting about Paul’s doctrine of sanctification and renewal can be seen in the way he views Christ’s resurrection—in particular, how he relates it to the resurrection of Christians. Consistently, without exception, he stresses the unity that there is between Christ’s resurrection and theirs, the solidarity that exists between him and them in being raised. The description of Christ in his resurrection as “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:20) provides a point of departure into this strand of his teaching. Nowhere else in Paul is the unity or solidarity in resurrection presented so clearly and graphically.

…

“Firstfruits” is an agricultural term, and its use here can be seen against the background of its Old Testament usage, where it has cultic significance, referring to certain sacrifices brought each year at the beginning of the spring harvest (Ex. 23:19; Lev. 23:10–11). That usage brings into view the initial portion of the harvest, the first installment of the whole. In doing so, however, it is not merely an indication of temporal priority. The notion of an organic connection or unity is also present and plainly essential. The firstfruits are the initial quantity brought into view only as they are a part of the whole, inseparable from the whole, and so in that sense represent the entire harvest. In other words, Paul is saying here, the resurrection of Christ and of believers cannot be separated. Why? Because, to extend the metaphor as Paul surely intends, Christ’s resurrection is the “firstfruits” of the resurrection “harvest” that includes the resurrection of believers. This thought is reinforced in verse 23: “Each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.” For the sake of clarity, we should note that the resurrection of unbelievers is not in Paul’s purview here (also true in 1 Thess. 4:14–18). In verse 20 and the rest of 1 Corinthians 15, the resurrection is seen in an entirely soteriological light. The solidarity in view is exclusively between Christ, as the firstfruits, and Christians; it does not include non-Christians. Paul, faithful to his Old Testament roots (e.g., Dan. 12:2), does recognize that the final resurrection will include unbelievers. That can be seen in his response to Felix in Acts 24:15, “There will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked.” But this aspect receives virtually no attention in his letters. Repeatedly and consistently, the resurrection is in view on its positive, saving side. We must not miss the full impact of what Paul is saying here. For him it does not go far enough to say, as it is often put, that Christ’s resurrection is the guarantee of our resurrection, in the sense of being certain because of God’s eternal purpose or his word of promise to the church, although both are certainly true for Paul. Rather, Christ’s resurrection is a guarantee in the sense that it is nothing less than the actual and, as such, representative beginning of the “general epochal event.” In Paul’s view, the general resurrection, as it includes believers, begins with Christ’s resurrection.52 So we may fairly speculate, if Paul were present, say, at a modern-day prophecy conference and were asked, “When will the resurrection of believers take place?” the first thing he would likely say is, “It has already begun!” In Christ’s resurrection, the end-time resurrection-harvest becomes a visible reality.

…

In Christ’s resurrection, as it may be variously put, the age to come has begun; the new creation has actually dawned; eschatological reality has been inaugurated. Second is the primary point we have just been considering, the unity or solidarity that exists between the resurrection of Christ and the future resurrection of believers. We may say that for Paul these two resurrections are not so much two events, separate from each other, as they are two episodes, temporally distinct, of one and the same event. Together they form the beginning and end of the same “harvest.”

…

In order to get the full picture of Paul’s resurrection theology, however, we need to take note of other statements, where he speaks of the believer’s resurrection using a verb in a past (Greek aorist or perfect) tense, and says that believers have already been raised with Christ (Eph. 2:5–6; Col. 2:12–13; 3:1; cf. Rom. 6:4–5, 8, 11, 13 and Gal. 2:20). How are we to understand such statements that affirm the resurrection as past for the Christian? There is surely an important element of truth in holding that the past reference in the verses cited in the preceding paragraph has in view the involvement or solidarity of Christians with Christ at the time of his resurrection. In this sense, their resurrection was contemplated in his as he, their representative, was raised “for” them. Careful reading of these passages, however, reveals another aspect that is crucial and, in fact, primary. In view principally is what has taken place in the actual life history of the Christian, an involvement in this sense that is “existential.” There are several grounds for this understanding. First, in Ephesians 2:1–10, a key word is “walking,” in the sense of a way of life and one’s actual conduct. That idea brackets the passage. It opens with the readers’ former, old-age, pre-Christian “walk” in the deadness of trespasses and sins (vv. 1, 5) and closes with their present “walk,” instanced in the good works for which they have been created in Christ (v. 10). That contrast prompts a question. What explains this radical reversal in conduct, this 180-degree turnabout in “walk”? The answer is at the virtual midpoint of the passage—as we might say, its pivot point—in verses 5–6. What has effected this decisive change in conduct is having been made alive and having been raised with Christ. An existential sense is also indicated in Colossians 2:12, where the resurrection with Christ in view takes place “through faith.” Further, in Colossians 3:1–4, as well as in Romans 6:2–7:6, the resurrection contemplated is not only the motive, but also the basis, that provides the dynamic for actual obedience and holy living. So it is best understood as underlying and effecting personal transformation. Finally, in Romans 6 and Colossians 2, having been raised with Christ is among the benefits sealed to a person in baptism. For these reasons, then, having already been raised with Christ is real, actual, “existential,” not something true merely “in principle” (whatever might be meant by that). The primary reference in the passages noted is to the ongoing application of salvation, not its once-for-all accomplishment. We may say that while the language used is that of the historia salutis, the reality described belongs to the ordo salutis. That way of putting it highlights the inseparability of historia and ordo, by virtue of union with Christ. To sum up our observations so far, three factors shape Paul’s teaching on the unity between Christ and believers in resurrection: (1) Christ’s own resurrection, three days after his crucifixion; (2) the resurrection that occurs at the inception of life in Christ, the believer’s initial appropriation of that salvation; and (3) future, bodily resurrection at Christ’s return. Furthermore, keeping in mind the organic connection between these three elements, that together they form a single “harvest,” the basic pattern of Paul’s teaching on resurrection may be expressed by saying that the unity of the resurrection of Christ and of Christians is such that the latter consists of two episodes in the experience of the individual believer: one that is past, already realized, and one that is still future, yet to be realized. Note how the formal structure of Paul’s eschatology as a whole—the overlap of the two aeons, or world-ages, of the pre-eschatological and eschatological orders—is reflected in his teaching about what personally for believers is the fundamental eschatological occurrence; their resurrection is both already realized and still future.

…

If we could ask Paul to provide labels for distinguishing the two aspects of resurrection, he would likely point us to our key verse, 2 Corinthians 4:16, and the distinction he makes there: as far as the believer is “inner man” (“heart,” at the motivating center of his person), he is already raised; so far as the believer is “outer man” (“body,” “members”), he is yet to be raised. … It should be apparent that in Paul there is no more important conclusion about the Christian life, nothing about its structure that is more basic than this consideration: the Christian life in its entirety is to be subsumed under the category of resurrection. Pointedly, the Christian life is resurrection life. In terms of the metaphor of 1 Corinthians 15:20, the Christian life is part of the resurrection-harvest inaugurated by Christ’s own resurrection. The place of Christians, their share, in that harvest is now—not only in the future, but presently. The Christian life is a manifestation, an outworking, of the resurrection life and power of the resurrected Christ, become the “life-giving Spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45). It is in this light that statements like Galatians 2:20 (“I no longer live, but Christ lives in me”)—autobiographical, but surely applicable to every Christian—ought to be read.

…

For Paul, as we saw in Chapter 2, human death is the judicial consequence of sin. Death is neither the merely natural outworking of sin nor the cumulative effect of sinning. It is not only sin’s own reflexive “reward” or payoff. As the “wages of sin” (Rom. 6:23), death is not merely pecuniary, but penal. Human death is God’s response to sin, a response that is judicial in nature. Death, as God’s ultimate curse on sin, is his just punishment of sin. Death, for Paul, is indeed inalienably penal. Romans 5:16–18 is decisive on this point. On Adam’s side of the contrast, the central thread of the argument, as noted earlier, does not simply go from sin to death, as the power unleashed by sin. Rather, that thread moves from sin to condemnation and then to death as the consequence of that condemnation, as the explicitly judicial consequence of sin. There is thus a forensic dimension that is essential on both sides of the polarity between death and resurrection. Each is the judicial consequence of, and seal on, respectively, condemnation and justification. Relating that forensic dimension to the already–not yet structure of the resurrection, then, leads to this conclusion: as believers are already raised with Christ, they have been justified; as they are not yet resurrected, they are still to be justified. In terms of the anthropological profile of 2 Corinthians 4:16, “the outer man,” subject to decay and wasting, mortal and destined for death, still awaits justification in some sense. Romans 8:10 substantiates and clarifies this conclusion: “But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.”69 Here Paul is considering the present situation of believers. On the one hand, and this is his primary accent, they are indwelt and enlivened by Christ through the Spirit, closely identified here with Christ as “the Spirit of Christ” (v. 9; cf. “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” in v. 2 and Christ as the “life-giving Spirit” in 1 Cor. 15:45). In other words, they have already been raised with Christ. But at the same time, the imprint of the dual, inner-outer anthropology of 2 Corinthians 4:16 is apparent in the way verse 10 is formulated. Expressed alternatively in the terms of 6:12–13 noted earlier, the believer is “alive from the dead” (v. 10c), but is that only “in the mortal body” (v. 10b). In this two-sided state of affairs, on the one side the “outer,” the body, is said to be “dead because of sin.” That is, the body of the believer is mortal as a consequence of sin. That consequence, the believer’s mortality, we are bound to say further, in the light of what we saw above in 5:16–18, is the specifically judicial consequence of sin. And on the other side, seen in terms of the “inner,” it is “because of righteousness” that the Spirit is the life of the resurrected Christ indwelling the believer (cf. Gal. 2:20; Col. 3:4). The judicial ground of that life is the righteousness embodied in Christ. That this consequence on the side of the “inner” is also specifically judicial is clear from “the justification of life” in 5:18, as noted above. It is important to stress that the righteousness in view in verse 10 as the judicial ground of life—justifying righteousness, in other words—is not God’s renovating work in the believer, righteousness as produced in believers. … I am not arguing, in terms of the inner-outer distinction, that Paul sees the believer as only partially justified as part of an ongoing process that is not yet complete or, more importantly, uncertain as to its outcome. In the immediate context of verse 10, verse 1, like a lodestar, provides a fixed and invariable point of reference. The removal of condemnation, the justification, affirmed there is true for the whole believer, not just in part. For sinners united to Christ by faith, in the judgment rendered by God, the previously existing state of being found guilty and of being condemned has been reversed by their now being found not guilty, by their being declared just. That judicial reversal applies to the whole person in every respect. In the terms of 2 Corinthians 4:16, it is the total, single subject, the person who does not “become discouraged,” who has been justified, not just “the inner man.” At the same time, however, we are bound to take into consideration the distinction—indeed, the nothing less than life-and-death disjunction—applied specifically to believers in verse 10, and to do so in terms of Paul’s teaching on the realized–still future pattern of their resurrection. In that light, it seems fair to observe, given that for believers death is inalienably penal (“because of sin”), its removal—as the judicial consequence of the reversal of judgment already effected in justification—does not take place all at once, but unfolds in two steps, one already realized and one still future. Correlatively, the open or public declaration of that judicial reversal, that manifest declaration attendant on their bodily resurrection and the final judgment, is likewise still future. In that sense, believers are already justified—by faith. But they are yet to be justified—by sight. An illustration may help to make this point clear. The situation is analogous to that of a prisoner whose conviction has been overturned and, with that reversal, his imprisonment terminated. But the procedure by which the court implements its decision, irreversible and sure in its execution, is such that the actual release from prison takes place in two stages, one immediate and the other at a point in the future (here the analogy breaks down because of the inner-outer anthropology involved). To apply the analogy, as to their inner man, sinners, when justified by faith, are instantaneously released from the prison and punishment of death; so far as their outer man is concerned, there is a delay until the resurrection in their being released from that prison. These observations are reinforced by 1 Corinthians 15:54–56 (ESV): When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. Here Paul is discussing the believer’s bodily resurrection, in other words, the resurrection of the “outer man.”70 In that regard (bodily resurrection), for the believer “death [being] swallowed up in victory” is not yet a reality. “Then”—that is, at a time still future—“shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory’ ” (v. 54).71 In terms of the controlling metaphor of the chapter (vv. 20, 23), so far as the Christian’s place in the “harvest” of bodily resurrection is concerned, death has not yet been “swallowed up in victory.” That the church’s victory over death in view here is still future is confirmed by verses 25–26. “He,” that is, Christ already resurrected, “must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet,” with death being the “last” of these enemies “to be destroyed.” Given the immediate context, the present tense of the Greek verb (katargeitai) plainly has a future force, as virtually all English translations recognize. By his own resurrection, the bodily resurrection of the “firstfruits,” death’s final and complete destruction has already occurred for him personally and so is assured for the rest of the harvest. But for them, their actual, bodily participation in that destruction has yet to occur.

…

To summarize, the “outer man” of the believer does not yet experience the saving benefits of union with Christ, either transformative or forensic. So far as I am “outer man,” I am not yet justified (openly), any more than I am resurrected (bodily). And that is so, without diminishing either the reality that I am already and irreversibly justified or the future certainty of my being justified in the resurrection of the body at the final judgment. Here again, in terms of the principle of 2 Corinthians 5:7, I am justified “by faith,” but not (yet) “by sight.” Adoption. This conclusion regarding the present-future structure of the Christian’s justification is confirmed by an aspect of Paul’s teaching on adoption. Like justification, adoption in Paul is a forensic reality. Briefly, human beings, as sinners alienated from God, are not naturally his sons. Quite the opposite, they are “by nature children of [his] wrath” (Eph. 2:3). This divine wrath is inalienably judicial; it is always his just wrath (Rom. 2:5, 8; 2 Thess. 1:8–9). Accordingly, removal of that wrath and restoration to fellowship with God as his sons has a legal aspect. Christians are not God’s sons either inherently or by virtue of creation. Neither is that identity the outcome of a renovative process. Rather, the believer has the status of being God’s son by his decisive, declarative act. Adoption, like justification, is judicially declarative. In Romans 8:14–17, Paul is emphatically clear that believers have already been adopted. They are now, by adoption, “sons of God,” and among the consequent privileges they enjoy, the Spirit who indwells them is “the Spirit of adoption,” assuring them that now, presently, God is their Father and they, as his adopted sons, may address him as such. But then, just a few verses later, we read: “We wait eagerly for adoption, the redemption of our bodies” (v. 23). Now adoption is future, at the time of the resurrection; it is given with or realized in bodily resurrection. Here, too, for adoption, as we saw to be the case for justification, the future resurrection of the body is invested with de facto forensic significance. The resurrection of believers will be declarative of their adoption. Within basically the same context, the scope of a few verses, then, adoption as a forensic, declarative reality is seen as both present and future. Initially this could seem confusing, even incoherent. How can it be both? By the nature of the case, it would seem apparent, either I am adopted or I am not. If I am adopted, how can I be awaiting adoption? Paul, we can be sure, is not involved here in some kind of double-talk. He is not speaking in paradox, with adoption as future rendering uncertain adoption as present and settled. The left hand of the “not yet” of adoption does not take away or cancel out in dialectical fashion what the right hand of the “already” of adoption gives. Rather, the respect in which he distinguishes present and future is clear from the immediate context. What is still future is what the entire creation longs for: “the revelation of the sons of God,” which we may fairly gloss as “the open revelation of the sons of God” (v. 19). Again, what is in prospect is “the freedom of the glory of the children of God,” the free and open manifestation of their glory (v. 21). Believers await the open manifestation of their adoption in the resurrection of the body. Here, again, the principle of 2 Corinthians 5:7 is present and controlling. For now, until Jesus comes, Christians have their adoption “by faith,” but not yet “by sight.” They are God’s adopted children in the mode of “believing,” but not (yet) of “seeing.” It is in fact the case that they are not yet openly adopted. A fair commentary on Paul at this point is 1 John 3:2, “Now we are the children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed.” Paul’s statements on adoption, we may conclude, provide a window on how he would have us view the closely related forensic blessing of justification. As adoption is both present and future, so too is justification. We have already been justified by faith, but not (yet) by sight. Akin to our adoption, our justification has still to be made public or openly manifested. We have not yet been “openly acquitted.”

…

For Christians, future judgment according to works does not operate according to a different principle than their already having been justified by faith. The difference is that the final judgment will be the open manifestation of that present justification, their being “openly acquitted,” as we have seen. And in that future judgment, their good works will not be the ground or basis of their acquittal. Nor are they (co-)instrumental, a coordinate instrument for appropriating divine approbation as they supplement faith. Rather, they are the essential and manifest criterion of that faith, the integral “fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith,” appropriating the language of the Westminster Confession of Faith, 16.2. It is not for nothing, and not to be dismissed as drawing too fine a distinction exegetically to observe, that in Romans 2:6 Paul writes “according to (kata) works,” not “on account of (dia) works” (which would express the ground) nor “by (ek) works” (which would express the instrument).80

…

for believers the final judgment, as it is to be according to works, will have for them a reality that will, as we have already noted, reflect and further attest their justification, which has been openly manifested in their bodily resurrection. It would be perverse, then, to read Paul’s teaching on the final judgment, as well as my discussion of it here, as leaving believers in this life, in the face of death, uncertain of the future—unable to know for sure the outcome for them at the final judgment and wondering whether they have produced enough “good works” in this life for a favorable verdict at that point entitling them to eternal life. To the contrary, everything at stake here, including their assurance, depends on Christ—specifically, if it needs to be said again, his finished righteousness, imputed to them and received by faith alone. ” (Source: Gaffin Jr., Richard B.. By Faith, Not by Sight: Paul and the Order of Salvation).”